


Dread in My Heart

by lesbiansinoctober



Series: The Sticks [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Autism, Autistic Spencer Reid, Canon Autistic Character, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Murder, Team as Family, hotch is a slut and rossi is mentioned once, i might get into it explicitly, yall know im referencing great comet and not slutshaming hotch right?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-23 08:48:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30052932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiansinoctober/pseuds/lesbiansinoctober
Summary: With Elias and Jo moved in, Spencer had hoped he and his family could move on. He could stop feeling guilty, and would be able to spend time with his brother again. He was right, at least for a while. Until a man Elias knows is killed. And, apparently, Elias did it.Sequel to Body of Years. It will absolutely not make sense if you haven't read that first, sorry.
Series: The Sticks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730233
Kudos: 6





	1. pitchfork and a flame

It’s been a quiet few days, uncharacteristically so. No case, no meltdowns, not even one of Jo’s moods where she locks her door as soon as she gets home. It’s a Saturday, usually one of the days where Jo and Eli pack their schedules full, roping off long stretches of time to lounge in the library and then to stop and pick up some sort of treat to bring home that they’ll leave in the fridge until Spencer gets home. The most recent was cannolis from some Italian shop that Rossi had gotten Eli stuck on. They still sit in the fridge, half eaten, but the filling has begun to seep out. 

Today, Jo has decided to work late, conjuring up some sort of work to do. If Spencer were less drained, if he could blame it on that, he might’ve asked her why she seemed to work so much. If he asked that, though, he’d have to wonder if he liked being able to do the same thing. Still, this meant today Elias, sans his day program, would have extended brotherly-bonding time. Rain beat softly on the roof, not the kind that promised winds and thunder, just soft tapping. It was just enough to keep the brothers indoors. 

Though Spencer would not purport to be an anti-music kind of guy, he was fundamentally against listening to any while reading, so it was that same rain that provided a background of white noise against which Spencer devoured his book. It has been a few years, enough time that the sting has settled, and he doesn’t feel his chest sink in to hear Maeve’s name any longer. Yet, on days like this one, he finds it difficult to beat down his busy brain and the way it reminds him that this is the exact kind of weather where he would lose hours to his telephone, just listening to her. It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it used to, but he carefully peels back the cover of The Narrative of John Smith and prematurely bites his lip to suppress tears. Like nearly every other book he’s read (if he’s being precise, which he always is, he can’t account for books he read quite young, and he would hate to present incorrect information), he can recite each word with perfect accuracy. This one specifically, he also has near exact images in his brain of the pages, the way the improper binding gives some pages varying gutter sizes. It’s less reading and more a practice of mindfulness, but he doesn’t care either way. There’s no one he needs to answer to. So, he flips the pages slowly, runs his fingers down them like they’re Braille. 

Eli was more than happy to hunker down in the house for a day. He was finding far, far too much socializing to be expected of him lately, and sometimes he simply needed to be alone. He can just make out the rain from inside his tent, can hear Spencer turning pages on his book from the couch just a few feet down the hall. 

He’s laid new towels over the top, salmon-colored ones that mix with the orange of the tent material and cast long strips of tangerine light over him. He splays out, not moving, not even sure he is breathing, just himself and the tangerine color on his eyes. Maybe, he thinks, if he stares long enough, he can get so lost, so stuck up in his brain that his body will forget he’s even there. Maybe, it’ll forget it’s supposed to keep him alive, it’ll forget altogether like those zombies in the movies Jo loved for a little while, and it’ll die but keep going. No, not like that, exactly that. He hopes if he presses his hands to his eyelids and watches the squiggles so, so much and so, so long that he can’t even hear anything else, it’ll kill him dead. The kind of dead where no one gets upset. He’s seen that, doesn’t like it much. He’s hoping it’ll kill him but he’ll get up in the morning. Sit at the breakfast table. Go with Jo to the train and get off at his stop. He won’t have to be in there, he won’t have to even know it’s happening. Elias is relishing this thought, regarding it with the same excitement he does his usual weekend plan, and he just wishes he had the words on his speech device to communicate it to Spencer. If he told Jo, he knows she’d get upset.

Though caught up in their thoughts, the brothers, clearly very enthused to share this bonding time, both hear the shuffling footsteps outside of the door seconds before there is a hard, sharp knock. That knock is so familiar to Spencer, the same he has been on the other side of, and he finds the door so swiftly he can’t be sure his feet hit the ground.

“Officer,” he greets, lip still bitten from his rereading, and graciously so, otherwise it would wobble. He can’t know, can’t even put an educated guess to what this could be. He knows Eli is in the other room only by his breathing. Jo? His mother? If it were a member of the team, he’s sure he’d have been called first, or at very least greeted by a friendly face.

“Spencer Reid?” The officer asks. Spencer looks at the line of cops behind him, begins to doubt his initial assessment of the situation. He nods. The cop continues. “We’re looking for an Elias Reid, you’re listed as a caregiver.”

“He’s in his room,” Spencer says, gesturing back. He is careful to hold his ground in the doorway, but it doesn’t matter much. The officers push past him, straight into the direction he had pointed. The first cop is already pulling his handcuffs from his waistband. Now, when he runs to follow into Eli’s room he can feel each time his feet hit the floor and the way they slide too much.

Eli hears the conversation, he takes all the words in, but his brain is trying so desperately to become a zombie that he doesn’t know what they’re saying. All he knows is there’s rushing towards him now and he pulls as far back into his tent as he can get and tucks his head into his knees, covers it with his hands like he was supposed to do in case of an earthquake. Spencer doesn’t even make it to the doorway before the officers are inside the tent, grunting and groaning and pulling the boy out violently. Elias calls out, not words but guttural sounds of fear. He reaches forwards to Spencer, he pleads but the words stick to the roof of his mouth like peanut butter, like white bread. He screams and it doesn’t matter that the sound pierces his ears so rough and loud. Spencer only stands in the doorway, shaking and biting the inside of his stupid, stupid lip. 

“What is this about?” Spencer asks, all sense of dignity and self out the window. “He didn’t do anything. What is this about?”

Now having wrestled Elias from the tent, the cop begins to pull his arms behind his back, slaps a cuff on one. “You are under arrest for the murder of Charles Samson,” he begins.

“What?” Spencer interrupts.

The other officers, a trio looking a bit dejected, perhaps expecting more of a scene, glance sideways at Spencer and then back to the floor. 

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.” The officer, that first one who had spoken to Spencer at the door, locks the second cuff around Eli’s wrist. Eli doesn’t thrash, not like Spencer would’ve expected him to, but he wiggles in the grip of the officer. “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

“He doesn’t understand,” Spencer says. He knows Eli doesn’t, not right now. 

As if to demonstrate, or maybe to object, Elias cries out again as the cop yanks him up by the elbow. It doesn’t matter, none of it matters because the quartet pulls the screaming Elias out of the room and straight out the door. Spencer follows, not noticing the pinch of wet, cold concrete on his socked feet. They walk Elias out, tuck his trembling, shouting frame into the cop car, and drive off with little word to Spencer at all. Elias stares his brother down, characteristic too-much-eye-contact stare, and doesn’t break until he can’t see the outline of Spencer’s eyes anymore. He stops shouting now, just cries in the backseat. 

Spencer is left in the rain, watching as the street grows empty, standing there until a random passerby gives him a dirty look. He wanders back into the house, barely remembers to close the front door behind him. He stands in Eli’s room, finds his cell phone on the shelf. He remembers exactly the moment he set it down there this morning. As he unlocks it, opens his contacts, he stares at the deflated tent and the snapped, plastic poles that protrude from it. 

He hovers over the “H-I-J” section, knows he should call Jo, knows she deserves to know what’s happening. But, he could fix it before she even needs to. 

He hits “Hotch” and presses the phone to his ear while it dials.

\---

Just a few months ago

It was a regular practice of the combined Reid-Dalca house to make an educated guess of the type of case it was just from the call Spencer would place before boarding to come home. Some days he would call Eli, and you could already hear the way he was grinning just in his voice. Jo and Elias would cook something, simple if it was late or more work if they knew Spence had a long flight. They’d eat, feel light, and Spencer would wonder why he ever thought this could be a bad thing. Some days, he’d call Jo, knowing Eli was to be asleep, and would give a simple warning of his impending entrance. Those days it was a toss up. Either he called Jo because he was being courteous to his brother’s sleep schedule, or because he couldn’t handle covering up the way his voice was drained in order to talk to Eli. He’d come home, maybe hours, maybe only minutes from that call, and Jo would be forced to make a choice. She could wait and listen to see if he locks his door, signifying he wants to be alone, or she could wait up in the kitchen and force him to ask her to get out. 

Today is a rarer, third type of day. Spencer calls, waiting to board in Ohio, and lets the phone ring only once. He hits “end call” a few hard times with a thumb, types out a “Home soon,” text, and tucks his phone away. It sounds so cliche when he thinks through the explanation. 

It’s just a hard case, he thinks, moreso to let himself know it’s okay. It’s a hard case and we get those all the time. 

Zanesville, Ohio had called, had pitched their case about children with questionable parental figures going missing. The team had flown out, had profiled some loner with a drunkard dad, and locked him up. It went just as a case should, as the team had done hundreds of times before.

Except, they were only 15 minutes late. The kid was still warm when they arrived. Hadn’t been moved yet. He was still enjoying the body. That was the kind of time they could’ve made up if they drove a bit faster. Or if the phone calls were a bit more concise. Or if Spencer had put together that pinnacle component just a little bit earlier. 

He knows that he can assign as much blame as he wants, and that it won’t help him feel better. That burning in his stomach, though, when he tosses in another fish to feed the sharks of guilt, feels nice. 

This is why, when he sets himself up in those familiar seats and feels his ears pop, he staves off sleep. He pushes against it and holds his eyes open until they hurt. He blinks that away and keeps reading. 

Jo, already an expert when it comes to telling the Reids apart by their footfalls, has been working more on figuring out their emotions by their steps. This is not easy work, though, and she chides herself for not being able to guess anything about the Spencer that was about to walk through the door. She and Eli didn’t cook tonight, she had worked late as well, and they’d picked packaged salads up from the grocery on the way home. She had stowed one away for Spencer, she often does when she starts to see less of him. Everyone knows he’s not one to remember to eat. That is to say, there’s nothing to clean in the kitchen, no spilled sauce or chopped vegetable to wipe off the counter, so she can’t pretend to look busy when he comes in. She just sits at the table, stares forward, thinks about how badly she does not want to wake up early tomorrow.

This is how Spencer finds her when he opens the door. He is careful to push it quietly, sticking an arm between the screen door and the frame to cushion that noise. He peers in slowly, drops all pretense when he sees Jo still up and waiting.

“You’re still up?” he asks. He places his go-bag on the floor, makes a mental note to toss its contents in the wash once he’s gotten some sleep. 

Jo nods, pulling her arms in close to herself. It’s not cold out, she doesn’t feel cold, but goose pimples line her arms out of nowhere. “Was up anyways. I thought you might like to see a pretty face when you walk through the door. Too bad Eli fell asleep.”

Spencer smiles just enough to match the emotion poster Eli used to use. Truthfully, it had done a lot for him as a teenager as well. “Thanks. I’m okay, you can go to bed now.” He casts a look towards their half of the house. When the silence stretches on, he continues, “You’ve got work in the morning, right?” He takes a seat across from her at the table. When she still does not answer, he lays his head in his hands.

Jo lays a soft had on his arm, pats once. “You hungry?”

Spencer keeps his head low, deciding whether or not he feels like letting Jo care for him. She’s doing it because she’s upset about something. It’s easy to read her, even if he wasn’t an experienced profiler. He’s been reading her since far before he gained that title, of course, and he’s always known her to displace her personal concerns by caring for someone else. She did it for 8 years, alone with Elias in Las Vegas, and Spencer can’t pretend to be shocked that she’s still finding ways to do it now. 

“Yeah.” He decides to allow it.

She rises from the table, hits the switch on the kettle. It’s instant, not even a question just what she feels comes next. Spencer doesn’t lift his head, holds it still and bites the inside of his lip. She opens the fridge, bounces the dangling door open with her hips when she stands in front of it for too long. The shelves aren’t barren, they’re stuffed in fact, but it’s all condiments or meal replacements or the small corner of nail polish that Jo keeps cold. Eventually, grilled cheese is the only thing that sounds like it would be good for his skinny frame, his cold bones. Jo sets the cheese on the counter, digs through the cabinets for a stray can of tomato soup that might have escaped the fate of Jo’s galumpki recipe.

The two of them stew in that quiet. There is the noise of butter frying in the pan as it heats up. Of Spencer’s heavy breaths. Of cheese grilling up and sizzling out the sides. Of the electric can opener. No hum from the fridge, thankfully, so Spencer doesn’t have to coddle his brain away from migraine. When finally Jo places two halves of a sandwich down, slides a cup of tea that is still brewing and a bowl of canned soup over to him, Spencer pipes up. “Thank you, Jo.” 

They both know he doesn’t mean the meal.

“Spence, we’re family. Don’t mention it,” she says, still bustling around to clean up.

“But we’re not. Not really,” he says, and Jo stops dead. It hadn’t read like one of those nights where they revisit that conversation. Honestly, they’ve never had to revisit that conversation, always just took the events of a few years ago as enough incentive to make this situation work. And it did work, far, far better than anything before. Joe is still frozen, fridge bumping her hips again when Spencer continues. “Do you ever feel guilty? That you’re here with my family and not yours?”

He knows the sordid tale of Jo’s family. Her mother a nurse, her father an angry man, her sister killed in one of those tragic car crashes that a small town would forge an entire identity around. It wasn’t a small town, though. Jo kept going to school, her mom kept going to work and her father kept feeling angry. It wasn’t long until she started finding her way into the Reid house more and more often. 

“Actually, my mom called the other day,” Jo says. Kitchen tidied, she resumes her place across from Spencer. “She told me how proud she was to have a daughter in politics. How she hoped I’d be just like Ronald Reagan. Not in policy, just… You know, I don’t know in what way she wants me to be like Ronald Reagan.”

The last time she brought up talking to her mother was 3 years and 59 days ago. “Were you happy to hear from her?”

“Spencie, this is not family therapy,” Jo responds, quick and almost snappy, but she cools. “I wasn’t unhappy… Just, what I mean is, I could be there. With my family, if I wanted. I don’t have to feel guilty for not being there unless I want to be.”

“Oh.” He can’t think of any way to bring this conversation back to where he wants it to be. He thinks maybe it’s run out. The two of them sit in the presence of each other a minute more, soaking up that feeling that they’re not alone.

Then, Jo rises. “Sleep tight, Spence. Sleep in tomorrow, if you can.” Then, she’s down the hall, and gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter picks up before the little cliffhanger i left on the end of Body of Years, but the next chapter encompasses that part so everything afterwards will be all after that. Hopefully this timeline is making sense.


	2. fisti-fuckin-cuffin' in the dirt

At first, with sleep still clouding his eyes, Aaron expects to hear Garcia’s voice on the other end of the phone. He clears his throat before picking up, hoping not to sound like he was guilty of partaking in a midday nap.

Before he’s able to give his most convincing ‘hello’, Spencer calls into the line, “Hotch?”

“Reid? What’s going on?” He sits up, throws the sheet off of himself. He runs a hand through his hair, like he’s already preparing to get himself out of the door and into Quantico.

Spencer sounds distraught and emotional, a vulnerable state that Aaron has rarely seen the man in. Maybe upset, or angry even, but never distraught, not like this. “Eli has been arrested for murder.”

The plan of action arises, fully formed in his head before he’s even given thought to what it is that Spencer is requesting. “Reid, it’s alright.” Hotch pushes the rest of the bedding off of his legs and rises, heads straight for his sock drawer. “He’s been arrested by D.C. cops? I’ll have Garcia contact them. I’ll gather the rest of the team, as well.” 

“I have to call Jo,” Spencer says. His voice sounds hollow, just words spilling from his brain onto his lips and into the receiver. 

Wrestling his socks on, Hotch agrees. “Call Jo, tell her to come to Quantico, and I’ll get the team going.” He pauses. “It’s alright, Reid,” he repeats, and he closes the line.

Aaron throws a sideways glance at the bathroom, deciding against stopping to brush his teeth. He’ll pop a mint in the car. 

Penelope, when she receives the call, is similarly disheveled. She had been baking, her kitchen a concoction of sugar and powdered sugar (which are very different and she hadn’t been careful at the store so there was a bit of a mishap including a blender) and eggs and food coloring. So, when she makes her way to the phone with her hands sticky and batter-covered, she is overwhelmed. Now, having gotten the gist of the situation, a grossly inadequate amount of information when it comes to the wellbeing of her dearest friend and his even dearer brother, she feels even more overwhelmed. 

“Shit!” Penelope says, tripping over a step stool that she hadn’t put back because her hands were dirty as she makes her way to the sink to wash them off. She ignores the mess she’s left in the kitchen, doesn’t care for the way the melted butter will have solidified or the eggs will have gone off when she comes back. Those are problems for a Penelope that is far less busy. 

She starts the car, taps her foot impatiently as it warms up enough to drive, and controls her breathing. Her brain is occupied largely by worrying about this as a case, knowing they won’t be invited in, wondering how they will be able to convince the police that Elias is innocent without looking as though they’ve got an extreme bias. For that matter, they do have an extreme bias. 

The car is warm enough, Garcia decides, and she sets off on her very anxious journey to Quantico.

It should be noted, of course, that as the news makes the rounds from Garcia to JJ to Morgan to Emily, not a single one of them entertains the thought that Eli might’ve truly done it.

Elias, on the other hand, never doubts for a second that he did it. He looked at Spencer, saw the way tears fell out. Spencer is a cop, he arrests people just like Eli every day. If something was wrong, if Eli wasn’t supposed to be here, he wouldn’t be. That’s what’s right. 

The ride is long, far longer than Eli assumes it will be. His hands are uncomfortable behind his back, stuck against the seat so he can’t sit back safely. The bends at his elbows grow more painful by the second, and he can’t find the words to ask for help. Two officers sit in the front, the one on the left dangling a fat cigarette out the window. The car is stopped in traffic, the intermittent kind that makes it so you never make it more than a mile or two over the speed limit. The officers, either taking pride in elongating these panic inducing minutes for Eli, or not caring enough to speed this process along, wait. That smoking cop taps ash outside, takes a long drag and blows. It is all Eli can do to not vomit. 

The holdup does pass, eventually, and the police station is considerably worse. Eli is sat in a holding cell, hands still locked tightly. Little is said to him, little is done to ensure he understands what it is that’s going on. His wrists have gone raw by now, rubbed against the metal as he shakes them in an unsuccessful attempt to self-soothe. He rocks now, finally having enough space to move back and forth without smashing either his face and hands against something. 

His thoughts rocket back and forth, too many to understandably dissect what is what. He hasn’t seen this police station, but he has seen the one in Las Vegas. Once, before Jo came and before mom got too bad to be alone, he had snuck out and made his way all the way to the high school before he was found. He was taken to the station, given an apple juice and waited for his mom to show up. She was in that in between kind of state, as she often was back then, where she could just lose track for a bit and find herself a moment later. She found herself an hour later, picked Elias up and apologized profusely to the officers, who were naught but understanding. Back then, they had explained he was not in trouble, he was getting help. They told him that cops do that, they help.

They help. They’re helping, right now they are. And it makes sense. He was trying to kill. Right before they came for him, he was trying to kill. Granted, it was himself, but he had read a paper about why suicide was once a criminal act. It was a winding thing, convoluted and he can’t remember much about it, but Spencer had left it lying around and Eli had been rather bored. 

Plus, he wanted that man dead. Charles was a disgusting person, and Eli did want him dead. 

At Quantico, Jo is trying to talk herself out of a panic attack in the elevator. She had hoped to run into a member of the team outside, someone who would pop this bubble of fear and just drop whatever news Spencer has yet to share on her unceremoniously. No one was outside. So, she mutters under her breath in the elevator, eyes stuck straight forward in fear one of the well dressed, professional men she shares it with will give her a dirty look. 

“It’s okay, everyone’s fine,” she reassures herself. “He just got called into work or something.”

When the elevator opens on the correct floor, Jo can’t bring herself to even wait, and she rushes through before they’ve fully opened. Scanning for familiar faces in the bullpen does her little good, so she marches her way to the same conference room that JJ and Hotch had ushered her into years ago. She’s not visited since, not wanting to see the things they keep around. 

Taken by surprise, or maybe just unprepared to show Jo that soft concern, the members of the BAU stare like children caught in the middle of breaking the rules as she opens the door.

“Jo”, Derek says, eyes cast down to his feet.

“Spencer,” she says, bringing herself directly in front of him. “What the fuck is going on?” She had been prepared for what he had to say, completely and truly, until she opened the door. His face, the redness around his eyes she knows means he’s been crying. And Eli is not there.

Spencer opens his mouth, closes it immediately. He swallows hard and tries again. “Eli was arrested.”

It hadn’t not crossed her mind before. He’s a big guy, a sweet one but misunderstood frequently and she had worried many times about what may happen if people saw him, alone, and didn’t know him. “What? Why was he… You left him alone?”

“No, Jo, he--” Spencer stops, heaving a breath in and trying to regain composure.

JJ lays a soft hand on his shoulder. “He’s been arrested for the murder of a man who works at his day program.”

Jo isn’t sure if she speaks much after that. Words come out, likely, but nothing she has any recollection of saying. Nothing that goes in is decoded into intelligible words. Emily ushers her to a chair, sets a box of tissues down in front of her. Jo doesn’t take them, can’t take them. A few tears fall, but she wipes them with her palm. She bites back worries of helplessness. 

Once she’s evened out her breathing, she looks to Spencer. “What happened?”

“We’re still working on that,” Hotch answers.

\---

Just a month or so ago.

There’s little Elias hates more than an alarm. It’s loud, unnecessary, an overstimulating start to the day. Those tones, their ringing pierces his head so harshly that it’s difficult to put together the coordination to turn it off. Today, it’s not his alarm, but Jo’s that wakes him up, and he stifles a groan. Her alarm goes off at 6:10, because Jo loves to underestimate the amount of time she needs to get ready for work. Elias knows precisely how much time he needs, knows that he can wait until Jo has left the bathroom to get up.

He knows all of that, of course, but he doesn’t do it. He lays in bed far after he hears her spit the toothpaste out of her mouth, covering his head with his pillow when he hears her depress the toaster.

“Eli?” Jo knocks on his door, one soft tap. “Get up, we gotta get going.” He groans in response. The sheets tangle around his legs as he turns away from the door. When Jo doesn’t hear any rousing movements from behind the door, she knocks again. “What’s wrong, bun?”

Decidedly not answering, Eli pulls the blankets over his head as well. After a moment of waiting, Jo opens the door. 

“Eli, it’s time to get up. What’s going on today?” 

While usually Eli thinks Jo sounds very nice, she has that kind of voice like a young librarian, today it is mean. He whips a pillow at her feet. 

“Woah!” Jo says. She takes a seat at the edge of his bed, gives the both of them a moment to sit together. “Elias, I’m having a hard time understanding what you’re trying to tell me. Can you use your device?”

Elias, not wanting to be angry, stays under the blankets, breathes slow breaths and watches the fall of his chest for a minute before sitting up. He pulls back against the headboard and grabs his speech device off the bedside table.

“I can’t wake up today,” he says, then taps it again to repeat, just for good measure.

“Why is that?” Jo asks.

He takes a cycle through each folder he has, finds nothing to his liking and looks again. Finally, he settles on, “I don’t want to.”

Jo clicks her tongue. Flicking her wrist up, her watch reads 6:25 and she knows they’ve only got another 15 minutes to leave the house. She doesn’t mind being late, not really, but she isn’t the one she’s worried about. “Bun, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us. Can’t have a busy day if we don’t get up.” She points to his schedule, the same they’d gone over the night before. “Morning routine, train, then day program. Plus, I’ve gotta go to work.”

Eli nods, turning back to his device. “I can come,” he says.

“To work?”

He’s grown excited now, searching through the brightly colored pictures for just the right words. “Work, and then library, and then groceries and then home.” 

Jo frowns. “That does sound like a fun day, but you can’t come to work with me. We can absolutely go to the library after day program, though.” Lately, Eli has been on an elevated level of irritability, especially after a long day. He would cry, something he had previously only done during meltdowns, or would clam right up and lock himself in his room. It’s not the first time Spencer or Jo had seen him go through a mood change, he’d had similar stretches in high school or after transitioning out where he seemed to just be at a lower mood level for a while. He’d speak less, engage less, but eventually always found himself again. The two of them were working as hard and they could to not be worried about Eli, to tell themselves that this will pass. Still, now, when faced directly with one of those troubling moments, Jo wasn’t so sure what exactly she was supposed to do. 

Elias, though, always knows. Discussion over, he gets out of bed, ushers Jo right out. He isn’t convinced, but he is scared, and once shut safely behind his door he lets the tears he had been holding back slide out. He bites his hand, not too hard, gives himself a minute to cry it out, and then finally gets dressed. The wind rushes outside, he can hear it rustle the trees by his window. He watches their leaves, keeps his brain solidly focused on the greens and the way the light flits through them, darker when it goes through two at once. This focus carries him through dressing, through brushing his hair.

It’s not that he fears Jo. There’s not a doubt in his mind that she would never hurt him. She doesn’t yell, not unless it’s a loud place. Elias feels the exact same about Spencer, knows that Spencer would do anything he asked if it was possible. But he knows that fear feels like a queasy stomach, like he’s going to throw up when he didn’t eat anything bad. He knows that it makes his head feel dizzy and fills it with the same stupid thoughts over and over again until he really does get sick and vomits all over the floor and Jo will be mad. It makes his brain too cloudy, cloudy enough that he can’t tell Jo that he can’t get up this morning because he doesn’t want to go to day program. So, instead, he’ll watch the leaves and talk to himself about Adventure Time and tap his fingers against his collarbone so his brain never has the opportunity to get cloudy. 

With a bit of effort, Jo manages to pack her own bag for work, toast four slices of bread and slather them with apricot preserves, brew a pot of coffee and pour half into her cup, half into a jar to save for iced coffee that evening, and grab all of Eli’s already prepared things. She lines his shoes up in front of his door while he brushes his teeth, sets his bag up on his chair. Eli is not a person who can rush, he only has one speed. He brushes his teeth for exactly two minutes and uses his watch to be exact. He sits at the table, eats his toast with enough care to make sure he doesn’t choke. He did that once, choke that is, and Spencer told Jo it was common in autistic people. Didn’t mean it didn’t scare the shit out of her, though. Jo eats too, uses the slow moment to double check some of the paperwork she was up late finishing the night before. She doesn’t know why, really, because it’s not like she can fix it before work, but she double checks anyways.

The pair makes it to their train with little time to spare, but are arguably not late. Eli holds Jo’s hand tight, pulls himself close into her side. He stays that way while boarding, leans his head on her shoulder when they’ve sat down. She lays her arm around him, attributing his closeness to the events of the morning but enjoying it all the same. It’s very easy to forget why she’s here, what she wants. 

“Jo,” Eli says with his device. “I feel,” he starts, and he drags his finger over each word in his emotion folder. None of them say just what it is he wants to. “I feel bad.”

Jo hums. “Bad like sick? Does your body hurt? He shakes his head. “Do you feel bad, like upset?” Eli thinks for a moment, and nods. Jo nods, too, and Eli doesn’t really understand why.

“I feel bad,” he repeats.

Jo thinks of the crowded train, of the stack of papers she’s supposed to have completed last week, of Spencer four hours away making sure someone doesn’t die. She thinks of all these things, and decides to be selfish. “We had a rough morning. I’m sure you’ll feel better by lunchtime.”

Instead of trees, there is a child kicking a dangling tag on a suitcase. It has glitter and reflects little flecks of light as it dances around the air. Eli keeps his eyes on this, doesn’t let them wonder for a second, and nods. The child doesn’t bore, keeps kicking her leg out each time the tag stills, and Eli is grateful. 

When finally, it’s the stop before his own, he prises himself off of Jo’s side and adjusts his backpack on his back. 

Just before it stops, Jo speaks. “Eli,” she says, and lays a soft hand on his face. “I love you, bun. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well today.”

The door opens, and Eli gets off without responding. He finds Charles, who has waited for him to get off at his stop every weekday for the past 2 months, and they set off on the short walk to his program. Charles holds Eli’s right wrist with his fingers, constricting like a handcuff. Eli doesn’t whine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope that this structure is making sense. i never play around with time like this so im enjoying it!! please genuinely please let me know what you think because i am really out of my comfort zone with this fic

**Author's Note:**

> hey friends!! im back lol  
> i don't have as much prewritten before posting as I usually do so it may take me a bit longer to get chapters out, but I will try as hard as i can not to dip out. i also am working on being a better writer so the chapters are hopefully going to be a bit of work. lmk if you can tell any difference  
> please let me know what you think and if you want you can hit me up on tumblr!! my url is bbbillddenbrough !!


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